2017 NBA Playoff awards race: Kawhi Leonard is certainly a robot
By John Buhler
The 2017 NBA Playoffs have had their exhilarating moments. Here are the front-runners for the six major awards, playoff-edition.
Half of the Conference Semifinals series have come to an end. Both the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors have completed consecutive clean sweeps of their first two opponents in the 2017 NBA Playoffs.
Cleveland crushed the Indiana Pacers and the Toronto Raptors to sit pretty at 8-0, awaiting the winner of the Boston Celtics vs. the Washington Wizards. Golden State pummeled the Portland Trail Blazers and the Utah Jazz to find itself at 8-0, preparing to play either the Houston Rockets or the San Antonio Spurs.
While the first two rounds of the 2017 NBA Playoffs have had far too many blowouts, we have seen several players take their games to the next level. Here is a look at who would win the six major regular season awards, if they were just given out for the postseason.
Most Valuable Player/Robot: Kawhi Leonard
Most Valuable Player of the 2017 NBA Playoffs is arguably the toughest of the six awards to sort out. Of the six teams still alive for title contention, all have a player they could convince themselves is having an MVP-level postseason.
While Kevin Durant and LeBron James have been sensational for their perfect 8-0 teams, it seems that Kawhi Leonard is doing more heavy-lifting than any star player this postseason. He is doing this for the Spurs because 1.) they need him to and 2.) because he is probably a robot.
Leonard is leading the NBA Playoffs in Player Efficiency Rating (32.4), Win Shares (2.8) and Value Over Replacement Player (1.4). San Antonio has won its seven playoff games so far largely due to the herculean effort Leonard has to display on the hardwood. One of his wheels might have malfunctioned in Game 5 against the Rockets on Tuesday night, but he has been the biggest reason San Antonio is on the cusp of getting to the Western Conference Finals.
Leonard is averaging 27.8 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists per playoff game. He is shooting 52.4 percent from the field, 47.1 percent on 3-pointers and 92.3 percent from the free throw line. While we should expect either a Cavalier or a Warrior to leapfrog him in the playoff MVP race here soon, Leonard has given an otherwise lackluster Spurs team a semi-tangible shot at a sixth NBA title.